U.S.-North Korea Roller Coaster Ties Add to Summit Uncertainty

Before he was elected president, Donald Trump said he could see himself having burgers and chatting with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.About a year later, after Kim tested a long-range missile that could possibly hit U.S. cities, Trump warned that any attack would be met with “fire, fury and frankly power — the likes of which the world has never seen before.”

Since then, Trump has said that he and Kim fell “in love.”

So goes the roller coaster of relations between Washington and Pyongyang. The ups and downs have rattled Americans and allies alike, and the two leaders’ past erratic statements have raised uncertainty about the horse trading they might do on nuclear-tipped weapons, economic sanctions and other critical matters at their second summit meeting this week in Vietnam.

The North Korean leader has gone from questioning Trump’s sanity and warning he would “tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire” to writing Trump gushing letters and pledging to denuclearize his nation and turn his energy toward developing his country’s economy.